Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday September 21, 2007 @12:56PM
from the battle-of-the-titans dept.

Another round of considered commentary from two game journalism luminaries is now completed, and ready for your consumption. Newsweek's Croal and MTV's Totilo go back and forth on the merits of those 'other' console shooters, the ones without Halo in the title. What follows is a fascinating conversation focused on the titles BioShock and Metroid 3, with a wide-range of topics explored. They touch on the importance of a memorable opening, the sense of empowerment required for a good game, and a few words on what may have been lost in the move to 3D in the Metroid series. 'There's a very real argument to be made that something was lost in the transition from 2D to 3D, which is what the Wii's backers have been happy to talk about. While it's worth exploring why the transition ruined things for some gamers, I think little has been discussed about why other gamers didn't lose touch and what kind of tastes may have developed in those of us who stayed hardcore on both sides of the break. What do such gamers have to add to a discussion that so often deals only with the lapsed 2D gamers and the children of the 3D era, to say nothing of the outsider casuals?'"

If you want to compare both, you need to play both. I do recommend BioShock first however since Metroid simply controls better than any Dual analog FPS could. If you play Metroid first you may you might deduct points on BioShock for a control scheme that was natural before, but now feels "clunky". For the record, I prefer Metroid Prime 3 controls over Dual Analog & PC FPS's.

While mouse sensitivity is still greater than the Wiimote (at least here, but it is a narrowing margin) The Analog stick kicks the shit out of WASD.

I like both too. Bioshock is a good experience for me since I haven't enjoyed an FPS since Doom and Doom II... Bioshock takes it back to the roots of what made an FPS a lot of fun for me, the killing in a new and thrilling environment. You don't have to worry about vehicles, you get most things available to you within the first couple of hours of gameplay, and the rest of the game is spent enjoying the level structure, interesting enemy dynamics and situations unique to this game, an interesting ability u

I own a Mac. I also own a PC. I don't see the point of elitism over either one. It's just an OS choice, you don't need to be rude about it either way. That being said, you've reinforced the stereotype of Mac users being complete and total fuckrods. Nice going, asshat.

The Wii remote will not do good on competitive FPS's though. Try playing counterstrike with a wii remote vs a pc player. You will get pwned all day long. You might want to think about your statement with analog vs WASD...

I haven't played Prime 3, but I know that the first two Primes had the best first-person jumping I've ever personally seen...I never had a problem determining a jump, and rarely did I have to try more than once to make said jump (compared to something like Mario Sunshine, in which some jumps take repeated attempts) You have a massive amount of control over Samus in mid-air in the original games, and that is something that DID in fact translate well into 3D

I think this comes from the fact that most 3D platformers are 3rd person, which, while being great in theory, also have some severe handicaps. It's much harder judging exact depth in 3rd person than in 1st person. The 3rd person games tend to vissually resemble their 2d counterparts more, which gives them a bit more nostolgic feel, but they become clumsy in their control. Mario 64 wasn't nearly as precise to control as Mario 3/Mario World. You may not know exactly where your feet are when in first person, b

I think Mario Sunshine really nailed the third-person platforming aspects with the "floating" water cannon. This helped you manage platforms, and it also gave you some reference of where you are via the streams of water going down from your pipes.

I've heard this complaint a lot. Now, with a flat screen, you don't have the advantage of stereoscopic vision and you have to instead rely (mostly) on relative motion of objects on the screen. This naturally means that level design is important to implementing a successful first-person jumping experience: the jumps need a lead-up to gauge parallax, rather than requiring jumps in close quarters.

But beyond that... do you need to look down at your feet when you walk in real life?

I agree completely. And stereoptics is actually pretty weak. The eye judges distance MOSTLY from other kinds of visual cues besides stereoptics. I think people will find that if they played a game with a stereoptic screen, it wouldn't actually be that much better, if really at all.I honestly think that people complain about first-person platformers, NOT because of precision movement, but because they don't as closely resemble their 2D counterparts. If people are used to looking at, and identifying their cha

I have to strongly disagree. The 3D transition wasn't really a transition. It was the beginning of a totally different franchise. The 2D Metroid games were great (and they still are). There's just nothing in Metroid Prime like the arcade-style simplicity and precision of control that 2D allows. 2D games just have a certain appeal that can't be achieved in 3D no matter how many pixels or Gflops you throw at them. Nevertheless Metroid Prime was such a perfect combination of 1st person shooter and puzzle

2D games just have a certain appeal that can't be achieved in 3D no matter how many pixels or Gflops you throw at them.

I disagree. I think Super Mario 64 converted the original 2d Mario experience superbly to 3d. Then again, it was a 3rd person camera, which makes a big difference, and wouldn't work for a FPS (obviously).

I think that the 3D zelda games (in particular the N64 ones) are some of the greatest games ever. Although I love the original Zelda as well. Zelda 2 was different than the original, but still 2d, and I don't care for it much.I've enjoyed what I've played of Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii so far. I never gave the GC versions a shot. I went back and tried to play the original metroid again a couple years ago, and couldn't really get into it.

I guess my point is, it's too bad you're not that big a fan of 3D games.

The original Metroid was good compared to its' contemporary competitors, but it's totally outclassed by Super Metroid in every way. If you get the chance, try Super Metroid. It's also worth trying Metroid Zero Mission. It's basically a remake of the original, but with all the gameplay problems fixed.As for Prime and Prime 2, they're easily on par with any Xbox/PS2/PS3/360 FPS in terms of gameplay and art direction, but after experiencing Prime 3's elegant control style you might have a hard time downgrading

*quietly, to avoid the flames* I liked them all....the exploration of new places and upgrading Samus with kickass new abilities....plus the fact that Metroid games tend to be more challenging than a lot of the crap out there right now!

Metroid on DS was plain awful, the Primes weren't that bad, but I don't consider all that great either. I don't blame this on 3D, but mainly on the first person view. When jumping is a central part of the gameplay it just flat out sucks to not have a body. Which not only makes jumps annoying (even so Prime was always rather tolerant in that aspect) it also, and this is far more important, makes them uninteresting. In the 2D Metroid you had way more possibilities when jumping, you had the ledge-grab, walljum

I have to respectfully disagree. I grew up on the NES and SNES, and loved the Metroid and Zelda series's. I'm the biggest Zelda/Metroid fan I know.I absolutely adore the 3D games. Twilight Princess is my second favorite Zelda game ever (after A Link to the Past), and the Metroid Prime series has yet to disappoint.

It's all down to a personal preference. I feel that Twilight Princess had a very good grasp of what was GREAT about Zelda 3, and I feel that the Prime series translated the exploration and feel

The control scheme on the DS version of Metroid was absolutely horrible, the game itself was okay, but I had major issues with the controls. It's the only game I can think of in recent memory where the control scheme actually caused me great amounts of pain. I'm no stranger to game induced pain, I used to get blisters after playing SNES games for hours on end. Also, I used to suffer from mild carpel tunnel from all the PC gaming I did a couple years ago, but that pales in compa

First of all, I too was disappointed with the 3D DS Metroid. The DS is perfect for Metroidvania games, as the two Castlevanias have shown. Now Hunters is not a bad game; in fact, it is one of the best games on the DS, and the best portable FPS you can have, even winning against a whole bunch of dual-analog FPS with its control scheme. Still, I agre with you: I would have preferred a 2D Metroid on the DS.However, the Metroid Prime games on the Cube are clearly amongst the best games ever made. In fact, the f

Based on you saying this, I can only assume you haven't played either game for more than 5 minutes...as a long time first person shooter fan (played them since Catacomb 3D) and as a die hard System Shock/SS2 fan, I can say that BioShock does indeed deserve every outstanding review that it gets...the controls are tight, the weapons are well balanced, the plasmids make for some VERY interesting fights, and the graphics are quite pretty.

As a fan of the metroid series since the very first one on NES was released, I have to say my number one reason for liking the Prime series so much is because of this: even if it is 3D, it still FEELS like a Metroid game...The atmosphere, music, weapons, enemies...even the areas that seem like dead ends but have some small little hidey hole or passage to find are intact. Prime is Metroid, through and through.

While an analog stick will NEVER be a replacement for a keyboard/mouse combo, all it takes is a little bit of use...after playing through only a couple of FPS with a controller, I found that I got used to it to the point where I feel comfortable picking up a controller and just playing. Granted, as I said, there really is no replacement for a keyboard and mouse, but it doesn't take long to get used to using the controller.In some ways, I prefer the controller for games like Rainbow Six: Vegas and Bioshock.

Granted, as I said, there really is no replacement for a keyboard and mouse, but it doesn't take long to get used to using the controller.

It's not a matter of "used to"; I've logged many many hours of console FPS play. Yet it has always been and will always be an inferior input scheme compared to keyboard and mouse. I simply accepted this as the cost of playing an FPS on a console.

Now that I've played Metroid Prime 3, I no longer consider it acceptable. Now even on a console I can have fast, accurate aim

You know, someone has to say it: The Prime 3 controls are not perfect. They're somewhere between okay and not any better that the GC controls. Locking on for circle strafing is great, but it also re-centers the screen on the object of interest, without your cursor being re-aimed. So in a fast battle, you point at the man badguy, lock on to dodge and fight more effectively, but your aim is way off. There's a setting to fix this so that when you lock on, you're also aiming at the opponent. It's not very good

You realize, of course, that your "way off" aim is because you're aiming somewhere else, right? Don't blame the controls for the fact that you wanted to play the game on Pussy and have it do all the killing for you.Apologies for being harsh - my serious comment is as such - you already knew you could turn that off. Did you think that having the game actually do all your aiming for you would make it more fun? Also, you can switch the firing control to the trigger (and I don't get why that wasn't default)

Well, to be honest, for an adventure game that's not a pure trigger-happy FPS, the control scheme for Prime 1 was close to perfect. Granted, in a mulitplayer combat situation, most FPS fans would find it extremely limiting, but for what's required of the Metroid series, the GC controls are practically superior to a keyboard/mouse control scheme.Now, however I tend to feel about Corruption trying to become more like a traditional FPS (which bothers me), I'll say that the control scheme was VERY GOOD in that

I agree... as a fan of Super Metroid (and used to speed run is regularly), I was VERY skeptical of Prime. While it is NOT the same, the feel is certainly Metroid and was loads of fun to play. Also, kudos to Retro for not giving in to excessive Samus eye-candy at the very end (of the first game anyways), it was totally tasteful and believeable and just right.

What I liked most about Bioshock was how it took those many ideas from all the stellar titles in the action genre: the implant system from Deus Ex (plasmid system), the Gravity Gun from HL2 (Telekinesis plasmid), sneaking and hacking from various "Thief" descendants, and, my personal favourite, the camera from Beyond Good and Evil, complete with the exact same piano notes played when taking a good picture. Despite those many games that served as inspiration, all those elements combine seamlessly and are hel

While true that the rendering quality has increased significantly in the last few years, one thing that really annoys me in games like Bioshock (and others, eg. Doom3) is that there are human-like characters in it that look identical. I mean, same face, clothes, wounds, stains. That really breaks the realism for me.

Unfortunately, what was most memorable to me about the opening of BioShock was that, as soon as you gain control of the player, the water splashing up in your face as you swim in the sea leaves drips on the screen, as if it were hitting the glass lens of a camera. There's my sense of immersion destroyed in the first few seconds!

In fact, "Something splashing on the lens, such as water or mud" is listed on Wikipedia's page on breaking the fourth wall [wikipedia.org] as a "technical limitation" that can remind the viewer that what they are seeing is [a film, and] not real life!

In MP2 (and possibly the first, I don't remember) you could actually see Samus' face reflected in the visor when there was an explosion nearby. In MP3 its even better. Whenever the visor darkens in scan mode, you can see her face and her eyes move to follow the scanning reticle.

It breaks the fourth wall in that I know I'm not a blue-eyed anime chick, but it's a sweet effect nonetheless.:)

Unfortunately, what was most memorable to me about the opening of BioShock was that, as soon as you gain control of the player, the water splashing up in your face as you swim in the sea leaves drips on the screen, as if it were hitting the glass lens of a camera. There's my sense of immersion destroyed in the first few seconds!

Yeah, that annoyed me too. It's like when they add lens flare to medieval/fantasy games. Introducing errors that contradict the story just because... hey, the engine supports it! George Lucas syndrome.

I don't know how many people haven't played the game yet, so FAIR WARNING FOR SPOILERS:

The fact that you are reminded that you're playing a game in the first few seconds of playing makes perfect sense, given the "Would you kindly" scene with Ryan (think about the connexions between what we do when we play a game and what Ryan does). Bioshock is more than a game; it's a philosophical discussion on what it means to play games. What I'm trying to say is that it might break immersion at the beginning, but w

I have all my old consoles still, and I play them about 25% of the time I'd say, but only a select few games that I just absolutely love playing, like Megaman 2, Metroid, LoZ, Lolo, and a couple others. There's something so attractive and moving about the simplicity of them visually, combined with the superb level design that just touches me in an extremely meaningful way. The music is also something that I love, it's so pure, no overtones and no human elements to make it imperfect, simple sounds juxtaposed against extremely complex musical arrangements; I actually ripped all my favorite NES music into.wav and listen to it in my car on a regular basis (Maniac Mansion gets me pumped when I'm driving). So the original 2D has this dichotomy of simplicity and complexity that makes it extremely unique and highly enjoyable, but the 3D games like Metroid Prime and Ocarina of Time just have so much depth to both the gameplay and the visuals that they just work for me. Obviously it's not the same type of enjoyment as the old ones, but that's why I keep them around. The 3D ones, I feel, have the same attention to detail and reflect just as much effort as the 2Ds, the only difference is that the incredible effort put into them can be directed into more areas of design and with greater depth than before. It's like eating a meal from the best chef in the world made from only 6 ingredients as opposed to a meal made by the best chef in the world with 20 ingredients; they'll both be the best meals you've ever had, but of course they'll be different.

I play both too. I still have my Super Metroid cartridge, but I haven't played it in awhile since I sold my SNES before I moved (no point in keeping it for just one game that I knew was coming to VC anyway). I got the VC download of Super Metroid 3 days before MP3 came out, and I ended up playing the two games together pretty much (take a break from one by playing the other...and I took a 2-week break from WOW to finish MP3). SM and MP3 are both fantastic games...they are very similar and yet very differ

when two 'hardcore' gamers get into the same room. Mario, Metroid, and Zelda are different games in 3D. It is unfair to judge a 3D game by the merits of the mechanics of a 2D predecessor. The fact that all three franchises have become critical and financial successes after the switch to 3D suggests that for any great thing that was lost, other things were added.Too many gaming enthusiasts are ridiculously conservative when it comes to things they love. I can't tell you how many threads I have read angry at

That's incredibly insulting. All the "3-D" Metroid games I've played have been boring (I got 1 and 2 as gifts). B-o-r-i-n-g. However, unlike you, I don't begrudge other gamers their enjoyment of the spinoff Metroid series "Metroid Prime." Live and let live, I'd normally say. (After all, I enjoy Metroid Prime Pinball, a spinoff of a spinoff.)

Unfortunately, the Metroid Prime series is killing off the good Metroid games, from my perspective. You never liked Metroid, but you like the spinoff

wow, dude, such anger! I happen to agree with him, and I love Super Metroid. I place Prime 1 and Super Metroid at the top of the list. I think the 3D games are VERY faithful to the original series in all but the action-element in the gameplay... of which I think is not so much a defining feature of the series. Not all the 2D games are great, and not all the 3D games are great. It's all pretty mixed from "good" to "meh".2DSuper Metroid and Zero Mission are amazingMetroid II and Fusion are "pretty good" thoug

I agree with you except for Zelda. I think 3D Zelda and 2D Zelda are essentially fairly similar, since the game itself doesn't revolve so much around control mechanics. The game is essentially a puzzle game with fighting thrown in the mix. This means that although the perspective has changed, the way in which you methodically play through the game has not. Case-in-point, I don't think that Phantom Hourglass, which is fundimentally a 2D game, is going to feel or play all that differently from WindwakerAlso,

Have these two "game journalism luminaries" played anything beyond a few console hits? I had to stop reading midway through the third article because they couldn't stop talking about Metal Gear Solid.

These articles seriously deserve some commentary from the designers to make them complete. I'd love to hear Ken Levine's response, although he'd probably rather see gamers work these things out on their own.

Near the end it becomes clear that one of them was relatively new, and never played Metal Gear before the 2d-3d transition. I"m not sure whether they're for or against MGS in 3d. Ghost Babel was a fantastic game that brought the most interesting parts from the 3d back to 2d, so I don't think it's clear-cut. But I think partly when you write for MTV maybe you don't want to use obscure references when a reference your entire audience would understand exists.

Ive yet to play either but both are games that I am looking foward too.
Definatally when I get my new video card, BioShock is top of the list. Its one of those games that seem to stand out in a world flooded with the same stuff. It looks sweet, looks like it handles sweet and if it has stratergy other than running and gunning, it's a good thing.
I quite liked the previous Metroid Prime games. The first and second Primes are still to this day my fave 1st person expereince of this decade, I felt it stayed t